Footloose and Fancy Free

A Kansas man has put his best foot forward — in a bucket of formaldehyde on the front porch.

Ezekiel Rubottom, 21, of Lawrence, had to have his clubbed left foot amputated three weeks ago after a lifetime of medical problems. After the operation, he took it home.

"I'm not sick or, like, a danger," he told the Lawrence Journal-World. "I just wanted my foot ... I just figured I'd do with it whatever I pleased."

Rubottom's friends at the house where he's staying don't mind the body part in a bucket, but after a local kid told his parents about it Saturday, the cops came by and confiscated it.

"We had to make sure that no crime had been committed," said Sgt. Dan Ward.

On Monday, Rubottom went with police down to Lawrence Memorial Hospital (search), where he proved to them that the foot was his. Hospital official Karen Shumate said people often keep leftover body parts.

"They've had women that want their uterus. People take tonsils. They take appendixes," she told the newspaper. "I think it's unusual that someone would want a foot, but it's within their rights because it's theirs."

Now the foot is back on the front porch, where it floats in the bucket along with a porcelain horse and a can of Hamm's beer (search), forming what Rubottom calls "a collage of myself." Two toes have been snipped off as possible gifts to friends.

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — Wal-Mart has ditched a program that helped single shoppers find love in the discount store's aisles.

Officials at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., ordered their Roanoke store to put an end to Singles Shopping (search), the only program of its kind at Wal-Mart's U.S. stores.

Taking a cue from Wal-Mart in Germany, the month-old program encouraged customers on Friday evenings to pick up a red bow they could place on their shopping carts as an invitation to other singles. "Flirt points" were set up in various sections of the store.

A Wal-Mart spokesman declined to comment on the reason behind the program's cancellation. But customer Dale Firebaugh, who showed up Friday night hoping to meet his match, said store employees told him several people had complained.

"I'm disappointed," said Firebaugh, 63. "Where can someone over 40 who doesn't smoke or drink or go to bars meet someone?"

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A California prison inmate has sued after finding a fingertip in his frozen dinner — and this time the food company is not crying fraud.

Pelican Bay State Prison (search) inmate Felipe Rocha was eating dinner in March when he "chewed on a crunchy object" in his cornbread and discovered the fingertip, according to the lawsuit filed against GA Food Services Inc.

The Florida company wrote a letter of apology to the prison regarding the "foreign object" in the food, and acknowledged a worker "severed" the tip of a finger while cleaning machinery when the cornbread was produced last July.

Rocha's attorney said his client is a Buddhist — and a vegetarian. Rocha, who is serving time on a drug conviction, lost 15 pounds in six days because he could not eat and is still in counseling, his lawyer said.

In March, a Las Vegas woman claimed she bit into a fingertip in a bowl of chili at a Wendy's restaurant in San Jose. Wendy's officials insisted the digit had been planted, and the woman was charged last month with conspiracy to commit fraud and grand theft.

More than 100 Santa Clauses and their little helpers danced and bellowed ho-ho-hos at the annual World Santa Claus Congress (search).

Despite a sprinkle of rain and trees in full Nordic summer bloom, the St. Nicks from 10 countries were in a yuletide spirit Monday as they kicked off a three-day convention in Denmark, including a Santa parade and a chimney-climbing competition.

To the strains of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," the bearded Santas dressed in red and white gathered in a northern Copenhagen amusement park as dozens of children watched in astonishment.

"I didn't know that there were that many Santas," said Cecilia Bergqvist, an 8-year-old Swedish girl.

To qualify as Santa, candidates must sport a white beard and don a red suit. They must not smoke tobacco and refrain from drinking alcohol before addressing children.

Later this week, the Santas were scheduled to parade in Copenhagen, visit hospitalized children and take a dip in the sea.

They also were expected to have a few good laughs as they draft proposals to improve their working conditions.

Demands include standardizing chimney widths in the 25-country European Union and holding Christmas twice a year to lessen the burden on Santas, who must currently rush around the world to distribute presents in just one day.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — Robert Theodorow could scarcely believe his eyes when he opened a piece of mail and found a $160,000 check tucked inside.

The check, for a sum large enough to pay off his house, buy a car and go on a six-month vacation, had everything — his name, address and his company's name.

Everything, that is, except for his legal right to run off to the bank and cash it.

Once his champagne dreams dissipated, Theodorow soon realized that the $160,294.40 check was sent in error by Winnipeg, Canada-based Cargill Ltd.

"It's not every day this happens. I was holding a piece of paper with so much power," he said.

Theodorow, who owns Stormfront Productions in West Lafayette, at first, thought the check had been sent from a client and had a misplaced decimal.

After checking Stormfront's records, however, Theodorow discovered his company had never done business with Cargill Ltd. So he called the company's Winnipeg headquarters.

Cargill asked for the check to be voided and returned, and Theodorow said he put it in the mail Thursday. The company is giving Theodorow a $100 gift certificate to a local restaurant for turning in the giant-size check.

"Everyone at work wanted to see it and hold it," Theodorow said. "If only I could keep the money, but that kind of stuff comes back to bite you. It's better to just clear everything up and make sure it doesn't happen again."

DEWEESE, Neb. (AP) — It wasn't that one of his cows had delivered twins that gave Paul Soucie pause when he checked his pasture.

Eleven sets of twins had already been delivered this year on the farmstead near Deweese that Soucie runs with his wife, Janet. But what raised his curiosity on the morning of July 12 was that this particular cow still appeared pregnant.

"I said, 'She sure looks full for having already had twins. I wouldn't be surprised if she has another calf,'" Soucie said.

He was right. The cow did indeed deliver another calf. Then another one.

When the Soucies checked their pasture on July 13, they discovered that the cow had given birth to four offspring without human assistance.

The mother and the four calves — three heifers and one bull — are all healthy, Soucie said.

Sherrill Echternkamp, a physiologist at the Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (search) near Clay Center, said quadruplet calf live births are extremely rare.

"It's so rare that I'm not sure you could even calculate a probability," Echternkamp said.

The Soucies had no idea their cow was going to deliver so many offspring, which Janet said may have been a good thing.

"If we would've known she was going to have four, I'm sure we would've been worried," she said.

Compiled by FOXNews.com's Paul Wagenseil.

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